April 18, 2012

When Women Are Paid Less It's a Subtle Form of Violence

The quote in the title above is from David Cay Johnston, Pulitizer-Prize winning journalist and author, who spoke last night (April 17) on gender pay discrimination at a Rochester NOW meeting. Johnston went on to state that in the 1970s society said to women, yes you can do other things, we'll allow you into the labor force. But, at the same time, society allowed wages to go down as the workforce was flooded.

Johnston went on to spell out in detail how women are being discriminated against in their pay.

At the end of his talk, Johnston gave two solutions to ending pay discrimination: 1) Women need to educate the men in their lives about this discrimination. In other words, change the conversation. 2) We need unions. Unions elevate pay.

What do you think about Johnston's talk? Are women discriminated against in pay? What can we do about it?